Welcome to my cochlear journey! This blog is a journal of my journey towards receiving and using a cochlear implant. It is my hope that what I write here will help others who are considering or going through this process to better understand it.
Some history- I am a 35 year old female with a progressive, bilateral sensorineural hearing loss that started becoming noticeable at the age of 23. I grew up as any hearing child would. I suffered numerous inner ear infections as a child and had tubes put into my ears constantly for about 11 years. Thankfully, I outgrew the ear infections and only got about one a year as a young adult until my family moved to Florida when I was in high school. My hearing loss is of unknown cause and so we have no map for how much worse it will get or how fast it will decline. In 13 years I went from borderline normal/mild hearing loss to profound in my right ear and severe in my left ear. Eventually, my audiologist recommended that I look into a cochlear implant if I wanted to try and preserve any of my hearing as aids would no longer be of much help to me.
I have always been a staunch supporter of the Deaf Community and Culture. I am fluent in ASL and absolutely support it as the best method of clear communication for Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals. I believe firmly that signed language is the natural language of the Deaf and that no child should EVER be denied access to language through signed means. If a child has a firm foundation in signed language, they have a firm foundation in language- necessary to acquiring a second language- to read and write in. I have a bachelors degree in Interpreting for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing in the educational setting. I did this for about 10 years after graduation and loved every minute of it! Unfortunately, my hearing loss got in the way of being able to provide quality interpreting services and I had to find another job. I've never been a huge supporter of Cochlear Implants. The very idea of trying to "fix" a Deaf person into a "hearing person" seemed just ridiculous. I always feared the technology wouldn't keep up with the times. What happens when the tech gets better but what's in someone's head is permanently unable to match the tech?
So why am I getting an implant- you ask?
Well, I'll admit that I was impressed by the forward- thinking of Advanced Bionics. I am now a Teacher of the Deaf and went to a workshop provided by my district where a representative for Advanced Bionics presented their line of products to the teachers whom are seeing more and more students with implants show up in our classrooms, but aren't always trained to work with them. The representative spoke not only about Advanced Bionics' partnership with Phonak- the leading brand of aids for children, but also about how the company is looking toward the future by placing additional hard drive space into their implants for future programming and capabilities. I was impressed. Finally a company that is looking at the fact of technological progress! Technology advances so fast these days that 3 days after you buy a new iPhone, something newer is already out there.
And so I began my research. I looked into all 3 brands of cochlear implants available in the U.S. - Advanced Bionics, Med-El and Cochlear Americas. I read research, looked at sites, asked around and met with representatives. I made my choices based on what I personally wanted out of this implant.
I got into contact with an Advanced Bionics representative- amazingly, the same woman who had presented at our conference. She was very helpful in getting me information and in contact with a local clinic that could evaluate me for candidacy.
My journey had begun!
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